Myths Retold
by L Bradford
Summary: Skeeve is a reluctant magician's apprentice. No, wait, he's a successful entrepreneur. Aahz is a powerful magician with no ballast. No, wait, he's...just confused. Time-travel is impossible, right?


Title: Myths Retold, The Beginning

Disclaimer: The characters and world herein depicted belong solely to the original author/s. I am borrowing them without consent or knowledge and make no money for their use. See profile for full disclaimer.

Summary: Skeeve is a reluctant magician's apprentice. No, wait, he's a successful entrepreneur. Aahz is a powerful magician with no ballast. No, wait, he's...just confused. Time-travel is impossible, right?

Author's note/explanation: I have no excuses. I am not ashamed. I am a giant geek for random time-travel.

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Physics are sort of funny, sometimes...  
~C. Kent

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Time-travel was something Aahz had mentioned once: not in lessons, but when they were traveling, possibly to Possiltum the first time. He'd said that it was too bad it didn't work, mentioned someone's grandfather being murdered and clapped Skeeve on the back and told him to remember what he'd been taught.

Skeeve looked around a faintly familiar hut and decided he'd dearly like to ask Aahz what had happened, if this wasn't going back in time.

"You still here, boy?" A gruff voice intoned. Skeeve turned and stared at Garkin. "Go on, dinner won't catch itself."

Skeeve turned mechanically and left.

What was going on?

When he came back with a couple of lizard-birds -- easier to catch when you could just levitate them in place -- Garkin was pleased. They cooked in silence and Skeeve forced himself to choke down the stringy meat. He'd had worse before, but not often since becoming Aahz's apprentice.

"You all right, boy?" Garkin asked, a shadow of concern on his face.

Skeeve stared at him blankly. "I don't know what's going on."

Garkin's eyebrows shot up. "What do you mean?"

Skeeve sat back, shock starting to fade. "What do you know about time-travel?"

The eyebrows dropped to a furrow. "What's this, then?" Skeeve stared at him expectantly, quiet until he shrugged. "Going forward or backward in time: supposed to be impossible because of how easy to create paradoxes it is. What if you went back and killed your grandfather? Then you wouldn't be alive to go back in time, and therefore wouldn't be able to kill your grandpa."

Skeeve nodded slowly, looking at the fire. That sounded about right. "What if you didn't go back physically? What if...somehow, memories were transported?"

Garkin coughed. "Soul transfer?" He stared hard at Skeeve. "That's supposed to be near impossible, too. Wickedly difficult. What are you up to? Where'd you learn about this?"

Skeeve spread his hands. "I'm not..." He sighed, seeing already how hard a sell this was going to be. "I'm not the Skeeve you remember: I'm twenty eight years old, by Klah's reckoning. I was a successful magician." He didn't say that the successful part came before being a good magician. Garkin really didn't need to know that.

Garkin didn't believe him, thought this was some stupid trick to try and worm out of apprenticeship so he could be free to steal. Skeeve had shrugged him off. He and Garkin had never been particularly close, their relationship was mostly mercenary: Garkin wanted someone for the little chores...like catching dinner...and Skeeve had needed a trade.

Now he could see they just weren't particularly compatible personalities, and let it go. If it had ever bothered him, he was long passed that now, and he had more important things to worry about. He wasn't sure when he'd landed in relation to the most important day of his life: meeting Aahz.

He wasn't sure how he felt about this. He definitely didn't want Aahz to lose his powers forever, so he'd made a point of clearing out most of the joke powder to start, hiding it in the woods and cutting a bit of what was left with some salt he'd transfigured to look the same, to get a more temporary effect in case Garkin tested it before summoning Aahz. He didn't want the man running off to replace it at the Bazaar later.

Without the lack of powers, Aahz wouldn't have any reason to hang around. Of course, Skeeve didn't need a teacher this time around and he wasn't a good enough actor to try manipulating Aahz into the same situations as before, nor would he want to.

For the rest, he began cleaning. It was an exhausting task, but he managed to clear away what looked like decades of grime in between lessons that were child's play to him. Garkin was at a loss as to his sudden facility with magik, and even more confused by his efforts at cleanliness when most teenage boys were happy to wallow in their own filth.

Eventually he'd done everything but Garkin's instruments, and it was made clear that he wasn't to touch those. Skeeve shrugged, glanced disparagingly at the filthy work bench and the rest of the clean hut and shrugged. "Thought you said we were supposed to get rich attracting clients," he muttered, just loud enough to hear.

The hut was now completely clean, no remaining possible contaminants to lock Aahz's magik reserves on his next visit. Skeeve still didn't know what to do, but he was pleased that Aahz was never going to have to go through that indignity again. He really did have a cast iron ego to be able to rely on an apprentice barely trained in the basics and come out smelling like money, but it still must have burned a little.

After a few weeks of this, Garkin finally couldn't take anymore and they got into an argument until Skeeve reminded him of things he shouldn't know about in the first place, mostly about some of the different worlds that Aahz had mentioned he and Garkin had played out their joke war on. After that he was at least willing to listen, letting Skeeve tell him about Isstvan's escape from his informal exile.

At that, he'd gone completely white and had disappeared for two days. Skeeve had lingered because he still wasn't sure where to go, and if nothing else he could subvert the Impish assassins when they came for Garkin.

But Garkin did return, and stared at Skeeve like he'd seen a ghost. Skeeve, who had seen them on an otherwise incredibly attractive planet of Fox people, didn't really think that was fair, but the ghosts he'd met had been at turns playful and murderous.

"You were right. He's escaped," Garkin said, draining the goblet of wine Skeeve offered, not asking how Skeeve had unlocked his enchanted storage chest. "They're 'investigating' his disappearance now, but...you say he's here?"

Skeeve nodded, not looking at the wine. "An old Inn a couple of towns over is on an intersection of several force lines."

Garkin winced. "Better and better," he muttered, pouring another goblet.

Skeeve shrugged. "He wasn't so hard to take out...the first time for me?" He frowned. "I'm not sure how to refer to that, actually. But anyway, we did get pretty lucky."

"What did we do?" Garkin demanded. He sounded a lot more likable when he wasn't talking down to Skeeve.

Skeeve, remembering he hadn't explained that part of the story, winced. "Er...actually, some Imps are on their way already, probably. They...sort of killed you the first time around. Crossbow, didn't see it coming I guess."

Garkin stared. "Then...who helped you? What happened?"

Skeeve sighed, and cursed his addictive personality. Wine would be really nice right now. But he was what he was, and he told Garkin the original adventure he'd had with a powerless Aahz.

Garkin immediately decided summoning Aahz was a great idea, since the council responsible for policing magik users hadn't believed him when he'd said the man was probably on Klah, and made to throw out his "joke powder" and Skeeve explained what he'd done, and why. Garkin had agreed that it might definitely be useful, and didn't toss the non-permanent salt mixture Skeeve had created. Skeeve retrieved the rest of it from where he'd buried it and then Garkin had summoned Aahz, and none too soon.

Like before, immediately after he began, crossbow bolts flew. Skeeve had no problem catching them, but it was harder in that he immediately laid an illusion that they had worked, leaving Garkin dead on the ground. He waited breathlessly until the pink-skinned Imps had shrugged and left.

Garkin was staring at him. Skeeve waived a hand and set up a reversed sound shield, letting sound in but not out. Then he nodded at them, because Garkin had completed the ridiculous summoning ritual he and Aahz had invented, and there Aahz stood in all his green-scaled glory.

There was something about the look he was getting that held Skeeve's attention while Garkin tried to catch Aahz up on the situation.

The lack of reaction was Skeeve's second clue. "Aahz?"

The Pervect looked up from Garkin immediately and frowned. "...Skeeve."

Skeeve licked his lips, now slightly less sure. Then he knew of a perfect test. "What's an ATM?" he asked, referring to Garkin's explanation of Isstvan's actions at the Inn like sitting on an ATM handing out limitless money.

Aahz stared hard at him, and then he threw his head back and started laughing. "You too, huh?"

Skeeve couldn't help laughing with him, so relieved to have at least one of his friends still with him. He'd been thinking about it for weeks now, and every time he thought about never developing a close relationship with Aahz he'd gotten this empty feeling inside he'd had to ignore while planning.

He thought he'd lost him again, and finding out he'd been wrong was more than he could've imagined. The relief poured out of him in nearly hysterical laughter which left him gasping against the wall near Aahz. After breathing a moment, he nudged Aahz's shoulder with his own. Aahz leaned back, leaving Skeeve warmed.

"All right," Aahz said after a minute. "We've got a few choices here. Seeing as I still have my powers somehow," and here he glared at a suddenly sheepish Garkin, "we could go after...him, ourselves. A head on confrontation would probably be shooting ourselves in the foot, though. He might be caught off guard when we walk in, since that Imp, Fockwatle or whatever, will report Garkin's death, but..."

Skeeve had never been really sure what Isstvan had done, never feeling the need to look him up after they'd set up shop on Deva, and early on in his apprenticeship Aahz had been way too intimidating to ask. He did remember the empty enjoyment on his face as he'd spoken of fornicating with his sister's corpse, however, and was happy that Aahz wasn't voting for a direct attack. "I wondered if we might try something like last time, Aahz," he said slowly.

Aahz frowned at him. "You want one of us to lose our powers?" he asked. "It isn't a bad plan, as far as last ditch efforts go, I guess..."

Skeeve shook his head. "I thought we might avoid that, or if we have to drink some too, we could work it so we drink the mix I made."

He held up the bag the joke powder had come in and tossed it to Aahz, who frowned down at it, smelling it, sifting it through his fingers. "Looks like normal powder, kid."

Skeeve grinned. "That's only about five percent joke powder, the rest of it is transformed salt." He shrugged when Aahz gave him a doubting look: not that he didn't think his old mentor believed he could do it, but probably wondered why he'd waste power on something like that. "I didn't know if Garkin would believe me," he explained. "You losing your powers always bugged me, you know, so..." He looked down, not wanting to elaborate on the guilt they both knew had plagued him for most of their friendship.

A hand settled roughly on his head, messing up his hair. He tilted his head so he could frown at Aahz around his green wrist, but the demon only grinned toothily at him. Skeeve rolled his eyes and Aahz pushed down a final time before retracting his hand. Skeeve pushed his hair out of his face and turned purposefully toward Garkin. "Anyway, I figured we could maybe use the Imps sort of like before..."

"Am I glad that's over," Skeeve said a week later. Isstvan had been dis-empowered and three Impish assassins once again neutralized so they couldn't take revenge. Skeeve had felt sort of bad for once again losing them their magic for years, so he asked for a way to contact them in case he could use them for a job later. Recognizing their inherent worthlessness now, they'd been quick to supply an address he could send mail to which would get to them.

Skeeve wondered why something felt off until he remembered. He turned wide-eyed to a relaxing Aahz and Garkin. "Gleep!"

Aahz sat forward abruptly. "Kid-"

But Skeeve was gone, already popping to the Bazaar.

Aahz groaned, falling back into the seat he'd been reclining in before, looking far less relaxed.

Garkin stared. "What was that?"

Aahz rubbed his head. "Hell."

Garkin frowned, confused.

Several hours and one adolescent dragon later, Garkin understood at least vaguely what the next year or so would be like, and wasn't willing to hang around to hear -- or smell -- any more.

Skeeve blinked when he saw him packing up his share of the loot. "You're leaving?"

Garkin shrugged. "You don't need a teacher anymore, clearly, and I have an aversion to...that." He nodded at a wide-eyed Gleep who was trying to peer into his fastened bag. "Have a nice life."

Skeeve stood there for a moment before he caught up. He didn't have anything back at the hut, so... "Bye."

He looked at Aahz, who was watching, face blank. Garkin paused, returning the look. Skeeve looked between them both, then grabbed Gleep and took him outside.

He heard shouting, but no crashes. He didn't go in to...well, take sides, to be honest. It was pretty clear whose side he would have chosen after their confrontation with Isstvan, and maybe that was a key component in Garkin holding his temper, as he'd never really had that skill when he'd been teaching Skeeve.

When Garkin came back out later, he was slightly paler but in one piece. He nodded at Skeeve and left.

Skeeve walked slowly back to the Inn, Gleep pacing curiously along beside him. They both peered into the Inn tentatively, and Skeeve was glad to find the furniture still in line and undamaged. Aahz was sitting again. The only thing different from when he'd left was the mug of spiced wine had been spilled. Aahz was frowning but not looking concerned, just thoughtful.

Skeeve gestured Gleep back out to play and poured another glass of wine from a clean jug quietly. He hesitated, then poured a heavily watered glass for himself as well. He made sure he set the unwatered wine in front of Aahz, and sat.

After a moment, Aahz took a long pull from his stein and finally looked at Skeeve.

"Okay?" Skeeve asked.

Aahz nodded. "I just pointed out that I wouldn't be responding to future summons to frighten stupid apprentices until he promised to keep the practical jokes less on the disfiguring side."

And there had been a disagreement on what was allowed, Skeeve gathered. He knew Aahz appreciated his friends no matter how he acted, and to have Garkin leave after that kind of argument...he looked straight at Aahz, meeting his eyes clearly. "You're right, Aahz. He should never have pulled something like that as a joke. That isn't how you treat your friends." He held Aahz's eyes for a minute before his own guilt forced him to look down again. "Not that I've always been a great friend, I know..."

Aahz snorted, leaning back comfortably. "You get stupid sometimes," he agreed. "But that doesn't mean you aren't one of the best friends I've had."

Skeeve tried to swallow his smile: Aahz didn't like it when people made a big deal when he did something nice. "Gee, thanks," he said somewhat sarcastically.

Aahz grinned and toasted him. Skeeve followed suit. After sharing a drink they both sat back again. "So..." Skeeve said casually.

Aahz eyed him curiously. "What are you cooking up now, kid?"

Skeeve frowned, realizing he was in for years of that now that he was fifteen again. He let the thought go for now and returned to what he wanted to put forward. "Well, I guess I was wondering what you wanted to do."

Aahz tilted his head. "Meaning after the hangover wears off, eh?" Skeeve grinned, hiding it in his wine-flavored water. That was one thing he didn't miss about drinking heavily. Aahz frowned at him before he continued. "I hadn't really thought about it," he said mildly.

Skeeve thought that probably wasn't true, but didn't call him on it. "Oh. Well, I was wondering...if you want, we know some of the things Possiltum is going to face: we know they'll need a court magician in a year or so. We could maybe do something like last time?"

Aahz was watching him with an unreadable expression. "No matter how it looks now, you can't really go back, kid," he said, voice oddly soft.

Skeeve smiled sadly. "I know," he said. "I just figured it would be a good way for us to build up some capitol and try working together again, see if...we can, still." He looked down into the glass he'd emptied without thinking and thought about pouring another.

Realizing how badly he wanted it, Skeeve set the glass down on its side and went to the window. "We could stay here for a while, or go around exploring some of the more friendly dimensions and then come back and set up shop in a year."

He braced himself, here. "Only you get to be the face magician, this time, if you want." And that was going to be fun: being an apprentice again even in name only. "Of course, even with the certifications I...used to have, I heard you were pretty good in your heyday," he said, grinning over his shoulder. "You handled yourself all right in the fight, too. Might be a few things you could teach me."

Aahz's dubious look was really impressive, but it was the same one Skeeve had talked him around from lots of times before. "Besides," he said turning around fully and leaning against the window sill, "it's been a while since you cracked a book or unrolled a scroll. Might be something I could show you." Then he waited for his friend to take the bait.

Aahz was a fairly normal Pervect: imply his finances or his understanding of his trade of choice -- technology or magik or both -- was sub-par and they could react in several ways, all of which were loud.

In this case he sat up sharply, sending the seat clattering back into one of the other rickety tables. "Let's see it, then, hotshot," he snarled.

Skeeve smiled.

The next few hours passed in a haze as Skeeve and Aahz faced off, resulting in a lot of smashed furniture and some bruises for both of them. Each of them were exhausted and impressed when they finished the mock-fight.

"Geez, Aahz," Skeeve gasped, half crouched as he tried to catch his breath. "Did you have to go all out on me?"

Aahz was in similar condition. "Didn't *have* to," he said, hand massaging his side trying to work out a stitch. "You were right about know some new tricks, though," he admitted grudgingly.

Skeeve grinned, lugging himself to one of the remaining chairs and pulling it upright only to collapse into it. "Still could wipe the floor with me," he admitted, tired but satisfied and definitely impressed. Aahz really was a heavy hitter. He'd never known. "Few things I haven't seen before," he said leadingly.

Aahz straightened and stared at Skeeve a moment before he began laughing. He grabbed another chair that had escaped largely unscathed and pulled it over to Skeeve. "All right, kid: you convinced me," he said as he settled into the chair. "But we're partners. Any 'apprentice stuff' is just show."

Skeeve nodded eagerly. "Sure, Aahz!"

"Gleep?" Gleep's head butted it's way between the tired but satisfied occupants of the Inn.

Skeeve grinned at his -- as he'd become aware of it -- incredibly smart dragon. "We'll be staying here for about a month or so, then packing up for greener pastures, okay, boy?"

Gleep slurped Skeeve happily. "Gleep!"

Later, after they'd cleared out what was well and truly wrecked, Skeeve and Aahz began discussing Skeeve's studies.

Something had been nagging at Skeeve all day, though, since the worry about Isstvan had faded. During a lull in the conversation he sat back frowning. "Is there something you feel like we're missing?" he asked finally.

Aahz frowned at him. "Like what?"

Skeeve shrugged. "I'm not sure," he said, frustrated. "I just feel like something didn't happen, or we forgot something, and it's going to stab us in the back."

They both sat thinking for a minute before sitting up in unison. "Quigley!"


End file.
